Hey folks!

I'm new to the forum but not new to lddb.com nor to Laserdisc in general. I started collecting when I was in my mid-20's which was in the mid-2000's (I'm 40 now). Back then LD was already obsolete, which allowed me to quickly build a small collection because I remember a few years after LD's demise, people were practically giving them away and many titles were effectively unsellable due to postage alone...

I then got hooked on more collectable items, mainly Criterions but after a few years I kinda lost interest in LD. I sold about 70 % of my collection but kept the Criterions and other stuff dear to me.

It was last year that my LD love was rekindled and heavily so! I was surprised that there is still a very active scene and prices have gone up some (especially for working players). I never sold my CLD-D925 and went on a weeks-long LD binge during my paternity leave from work. Great times were had!

With a bit more funding available to me nowadays, the inevitable just happened a few weeks back - Hi-Vision ...do we all eventually end up there?

I missed the opportunity to score a HLD-X9 locally last fall at a very good price (sub-2k for the player, an MSC-4000 and one disc), but happened upon the very same combination (sans a movie) just a few weeks ago. I had to have it shipped but it went well.

So, here I am in the year 2022, owning more than ever of a medium that was already obsolete when I first started almost 20 years ago...I'm at 26 Criterions now plus a newly acquired CLD-2950 plus said MUSE equipment. The only thing missing now is a MUSE disc, but I'm working on that

Best, Lars

hello!! i'm actually the same age as you, and, i too, effectively got started in LD around the mid-2000's,
though i knew about the format (vaguely) since the mid-late-90's, and i got my first, non-functional LD player
around 2000/2001, a 1990 PIONEER CLD-1080 that had strange issues and wouldn't even play a CD.

around 2004/2005, i found yet another 1080, -fully functional- and that was, -even though it didn't last me long- effectively my first-ever LDP.

around that time, i got some LDs for cheap ($1/$2.00 for single discs, $4.00 for box sets) from the used video shop me and my grandma frequented
when i stayed up at her house at the time. the very same shop, in fact, where i found that first CLD-1080 back in the early-2000's.

packing the car to head home, i had stumbled on my grandma's dangerously-narrow staircase down to the front-door landing,
and out went that good 1080, to get smashed face-first into the outer brass hand-railing. that was FINIS for my second and last CLD-1080.

in 2005, not long before we moved, i found a 1987 PIONEER LD-838D at a hock shop, and that carried my through in LD until i got full internet access of my own
around 2006/2007, and was able to buy my dream player to this day, -1988's PIONEER CLD-3030- off of the BAY for around $60/$80 shipped...

Hi and welcome to the forum

I see you own pretty much an identical range of LD players as I currently do. I got my first player (CLD-2950) back in around 1995 and the bug has stayed with me ever since, with my collection currently standing at around 350+ discs including a handful of Muse titles. I remember when I purchased the 2950 thinking this is as good as it gets in Europe only to see it superseded a few months later by the newer 925! The dealer never told me a new model was imminent Anyway at the end of the day both these models have their own particular merits I suppose.

If you want a tip for a good muse/hi-vision disc to start with I can recommend A River Runs Through it, most of the film based discs aren’t so great but this one is a rare exception! And an excellent example of a video based disc is Ordinary Europe - I would dearly love to own a copy of that one.

Welcome!



I have a CLD-2950 with 120V power supply and AC-3 RF, but I'm tempted to import a CLD-D925 at some point to see which one I like more for PAL playback. I'd have to find a broken one though to justify the cost.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Re. 2950 vs. 925...they indeed each have their own merits, I find the 925 to be the more modern machine, obviously, being much quicker and also quieter in operation. The 2950 on the other hand has superior picture quality IMO. They're both very good machines.

I am in fact after a copy of A River runs through it, as I've read a lot of positive comments regarding PQ

If I’m honest and was forced to make a choice judging on PAL PQ alone; I think I would take the 925 over the 2950 nowadays but this is only my opinion and when used in conjunction with the Lumagen 2144 and it could be a completely different story with other kit as the 925 with its overall rather more detailed image quality can on certain discs reveal an unacceptably high level of chroma noise for my tastes, something which a 2950 seems to handle/hide? rather more competently.

Did you modify the 2950 to 120v yourself cplusplus?



Let us know your verdict if you get a copy, see you around

Yes, it is quite trivial. I simply put in a CLD-D503 power supply.

I've had a pretty similar journey with LD, but I'm definitely on the downswing of my latest arc.

I got into it in the early-2000s in college (mostly for Star Wars) as my Home Theater interests were burgeoning. While I enjoyed LD in general, once Star Wars was available on DVD (I'm not a Special Edition hater, that's what I first saw in theaters), it became redundant and represented capital that I could reinvest elsewhere in my Home Theater.

In the summer of 2020 I started a relatively extensive overhaul of my theater room and, in the process, found my Star Wars SE set (the only LD from college I didn't sell off). Out of boredom and nostalgia, I decided to track down a player to play it and the rest has been a rabbit hole spiral. I'm on my third player (D704), second AC3 Demodulator (Denon AVD2000), and toyed with a standalone VP (Extron DSC-301HD) but sold it along since it didn't seem to be helping much (currently using my AVR for comb/AD/deinterlace and projector for scaling/zoom).

I've tried to make all of my purchases relatively value-oriented and keep the niche usage in mind... but I'm still to the point that I have about the same value tied up in my LD equipment as my UHD player (Panasonic UB420), streaming device (Nvidia Shield TV '19), and turntable (Fluance RT80 + LP Gear Stylus + Project PhonoBox E) COMBINEd. And all so I can spin a disc every couple of months at mediocre quality. After the first 8-10 months I made the decision to only buy discs at when I find them cheap locally (Goodwill, McCay's in Chattanooga, etc). I'm just at the point that the novelty of the technology has worn off and there really isn't anything I can't watch in higher quality and more conveniently (including non-SE Star Wars, thanks 4K77, 4K83, and soon 4K80). I'm also considering a move that will eliminate my dedicated home theater room (though I'll maintain the core equipment in the living room), so there is the added bonus of streamlining by eliminating some of the bulkiest equipment (LD player, demod, and probably HD-DVD player too).

Now I'm at the point that I'm considering liquidating again. I got my current player and demod through some lucky deals on Shop Goodwill, so they'll represent a reasonable profit. I was able to break even overall on my first two players and first demod. I'll probably take a bit of a hit on my discs since I bought them individually and will likely sell them as a lot or bundled with the player/demod if I'm lucky (none are anything rare or special, just mainstream films I like).